I'll admit that I haven't taken the time to read this entire (lengthy) thread so I apologize if this has been answered already.

I'm not a pixel peeper and I am certain that the 75/1.8 would be an amazing lens (I'm very impressed from the IQ I get from the 45/1.8 and my E-M5). So with that in mind, I'd like to know if the DxO score of 35 for the Nikon 85/1.8 and the score of 23 for the Oly 75/1.8 are on the same scale. Put simply, is the "best" m4/3 lens that far behind the "best" FF lens? Again, I'm sure I'll be blown away by the IQ of the Oly 75/1.8, but does FF vs m4/3 affect the scoring so that you can't really compare the two scores?

Depends on how you reason. DxO takes account of the ability of a lens to accumulate light. Although the Oly 75/1.8 and the Nikon 85/1.8 are both f/1.8 lenses, the Nikon can accumulate four times more light on an FF camera than the Oly 75/1.8 can on an MFT camera at the same exposure (same f-stop and shutter speed). This is due to the fact that the FF lens has a larger image circle which is projected on a larger sensor. In a sense, one can say that DxO counts the advantage of a larger sensor twice, first when they test sensors, and then again when they test lenses. On top of that, they currently use a measure of resolution (P-Mpix) that a lot of people (me included) find highly questionable. As a result, I am no longer interested in their lens tests (which I did use to look at as long as they included MTF curves; I never cared about their scores).

If you are asking how well the Olympus 75/1.8 does on an MFT cameras in comparison with top-notch FF lenses on FF cameras, keeping the f-stop and the sensor resolution the same, the answer is: very well indeed! There are lots of other test results (e.g., those of Lenstip and LensRentals) to support that claim.

Anders and tt321,

Thanks for the speedy responses. I figured something like the sensor area (or as you noted, image circle) must be affecting the analysis in order for the Nikon to score so much higher than the Oly 75/1.8. One thing is for sure, the IQ I've seen from samples and images posted on this forum have blown me away. Of course, for $900 one would expect that to be the case.